‘Apollo 18’ Launch Delayed To April 22; ‘Warrior’ Gets In The Ring On September 9

'Apollo 18' Launch Delayed To April 22; 'Warrior' Gets In The Ring On September 9

A couple of release date changes and announcements for you, so get your red pencil and your calendar.

First up, the Timur Bekmambetov-produced found footage space thriller monster thingy “Apollo 18” has been moved about a month and a half from March 4th to April 22nd. No reason for the move, but considering it was only in the middle of November that the film even locked down a director, perhaps the ambitions to shoot, market and release a film in about four months just couldn’t be met. Now everyone involved has a few more weeks to breathe and try and get this thing done. The largely unknown Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego is directing and is likely working with an equally unknown cast.

Meanwhile, a film that just cropped up as one to watch in our list of Escapist & Potentially Entertaining Films Of 2011, the Tom Hardy-starring mixed martial arts film “Warrior” now has a September 9th release date. Directed by Gavin O’Connor (“Pride & Glory“), the early word on this one is that it’s less of a fighting pic and more of a family drama. Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Morrison, Noah Emmerich, Kevin Dunn and Denzel Whitaker round out the promising cast and we’re definitely curious as to what’s in store. Even if it sucks, it’ll at least have some sequences of Hardy beating the shit out of people “Bronson“-style right? Here’s the synopsis:

Two brothers face the fight of a lifetime – and the wreckage of their broken family – within the brutal, high-stakes world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting in Lionsgate’s action/drama, WARRIOR.

An ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past, Tommy Riordan returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father, a recovered alcoholic and his former coach, to train him for an MMA tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport. As Tommy blazes a violent path towards the title prize, his brother, Brendan, a former MMA fighter unable to make ends meet as a public school teacher, returns to the amateur ring to provide for his family. Even though years have passed, recriminations and past betrayals keep Brendan bitterly estranged from both Tommy and his father.

But when Brendan’s unlikely rise as an underdog sets him on a collision course with Tommy, the two brothers must finally confront the forces that tore them apart, all the while waging the most intense, winner-takes-all battle of their lives.

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Zhao said with her Bass Reeves biopic, she’ll direct a more traditional cast like she did with her first-timers: “You can work with an actor in a certain way, you can create an environment like Terrence Malick has always done.”